A CAMPAIGNER whose haemophiliac husband was infected by contaminated NHS blood products has described a £45,000 Government compensation offer as abysmal.

Carol Grayson, of Jesmond, Newcastle, was speaking after Health Secretary Dr John Reid announced a scheme to grant up to £45,000 to each patient infected with hepatitis C after being given blood products.

Her husband, Peter Longstaff, 45, who is also HIV positive, is in poor health and will shortly need a liver transplant because of the damage caused by the infection.

Mr Longstaff believes he was first infected with contaminated blood products in the 1970s, and has since contracted HIV as a result of further contamination.

Ms Grayson said the offer by Dr Reid was abysmal and inadequate and failed to match payments made in 1991 to patients who were contaminated with the Aids virus.

"We believe if there was a full and open inquiry the Government would be forced to make substantial negligence payments," said Ms Grayson.

"More than a thousand British patients have died because of contaminated blood and blood products and yet we are still denied a public inquiry," she said.

Under the deal, everyone in the UK who was alive on August 29, 2003, and whose hepatitis C infection was found to be caused by NHS treatment with blood products before September 1991, will be eligible for payment.

People infected with hepatitis C will receive an initial sum of £20,000. Those patients who develop more advanced stages of the illness, such as cirrhosis or liver cancer, will get a further £25,000.

About 5,000 people with haemophilia were infected with hepatitis in the 1970s and 80s before blood was screened.